Rallies at OnePurdue
Every two weeks, the OnePurdue project team begins its day with something known as “Rally in the Alley.” All functional, technical and administrative teams take turns organizing these 30-minute events, which are designed to help foster and maintain strong team cohesiveness. Sometimes they have been built around specific occasions or other goals. At right, Kee Lee of the Enrollment and Student Affairs Team, which sponsored an event, waves the old gold and black at a gridiron-themed rally — complete with a 7 a.m. tailgate party in the parking lot. Above, Rob Campbell, a portal developer on the Application Development Team, tests his aim during “Karnival Katrina,” an Oct. 5 rally planned by the Data and Infrastructure Team that raised money for victims of recent hurricanes in the South. (Read more about this fundraiser below.) Watching Campbell's bean bag fly to its target are (from left) Craig Fee of the Finance Team, Training Specialist Ginger Walkup and Crystal Dombowski of the Finance Team. Photos by Steve Jones

An Oct. 5 rally organized by the Data and Infrastructure Team for the entire OnePurdue project team helped raise money for victims of recent hurricanes. Dubbed "Karnival Katrina," OnePurdue project team members donated $400 by participating in the event's activities, and OnePurdue's implementation partner, BearingPoint, matched that figure, bringing the total amount to $800 that was raised for Purdue's Hurricane Relief Fund.

“This is a great testament to the character and generosity of the entire OnePurdue team,” said Brad Skiles, OnePurdue's Data and Infrastructure team lead.

Currently in its second of five implementation phases, OnePurdue is proceeding with the design of the software that will be used, while making decisions regarding Purdue’s future business processes.

The five-step “roadmap” for implementing the mySAP ERP software, known as Accelerated SAP (ASAP), is now at a point where the project team is involved in a number of activities, including:

Defining University-wide business processes to be addressed in the new system.

Determining what kinds of reports Purdue will need.

Identifying all current Purdue software that interfaces with the existing legacy systems.

Deciding which data will need to be converted (or “cleansed”) before transferring it from the current databases to the new systems.

Numerous “process-validation” workshops have also been underway throughout the current “Business Blueprint” Phase, said Colleen Robison, OnePurdue’s director of change management and training.

These workshops, she said, will help the project team identify future business processes, policies and procedures, and decide how the new software should be configured.

Robison emphasized the importance of understanding the difference between configuring the software, which is what Purdue will be doing, as opposed to customizing it. Configuring the software, she said, is analogous to changing your personal preferences or options in an application such as Word, Excel, Outlook or Safari.

“Just as users of word processing, spreadsheet and e-mail programs can change certain things to suit their own needs, SAP’s software includes many ways for Purdue to configure it to better match the needs of the University.”

Customization, on the other hand, said Robison, would be like asking a software developer to change its code in order to give it functionality it was not originally designed to have.

“As you can imagine, that would be quite expensive, and take a lot more time,” she said.

That’s why it is often said that the goal is to implement a “vanilla” or “off-the-shelf” version of the SAP software.

In addition to other activities occurring during Phase II of ASAP, the OnePurdue team has completed levels one and two of SAP project-team training, a 15-course overview of the software and its capabilities. Team members have also begun the third level of training, which will teach them how to configure the software.

At the end of Phase II, a report (the OnePurdue Blueprint) will be produced that will detail the overall plan for how business processes will change and how OnePurdue will look. The blueprint document for the Finance and Human Resource implementations will be ready in November for approval by the OnePurdue Executive Oversight Committee. Once approved, that document will provide the information needed to begin configuring the SAP software.

The student software module, the most complex and final one to be fully implemented (in 2008), will remain in its Blueprint Phase until April 2006.

OnePurdue Executive Director Gary Newsom speaks to a Fowler Hall audience of more than 190 during a Sept. 27 town-hall meeting at the West Lafayette campus.Photo by Steve Jones

OnePurdue has been conducting its first series of system-wide town hall-style meetings in an effort to help the University community learn about the project.

Led by OnePurdue Executive Director Gary Newsom, “An Overview of OnePurdue” is the topic of the first of three series of presentations and question-and-answer events. The information covered in these initial sessions have been introductory in nature, answering such basic questions as:

What is OnePurdue?

Why OnePurdue?

How is it being implemented?

Who is doing this?

What will it include?

How is Purdue ensuring the project's success?

How can I stay informed about OnePurdue?

The first town-hall meeting was held Aug. 31 at the Fort Wayne campus and drew about 180 participants. Sessions on Sept. 27 (more than 190 attendees) and Oct. 10 (about 200) were held in Fowler Hall at the West Lafayette campus. Two Oct. 3 meetings at Calumet also had good turnouts.

There are still two more of these meetings scheduled at the North Central campus Nov. 14-15. See the chart below for more details about these events, including specific times and locations.

The second series of town-hall meetings, “An Overview of Changing Policies and Processes,” will be presented early next spring semester. The Series 3 meetings, “End-User Training and Ongoing Support Services,” will take place
in early summer 2006.

Future meetings will be scheduled to accommodate both day and evening staff at each campus.

“These are good opportunities for people in the Purdue community to learn more about OnePurdue and how it will affect them, and I hope as many people as possible will continue to attend,” said Newsom.

Working on OnePurdue often seems to require learning a whole new language, one that is full of unique words, names and acronyms. Here are a few of the more common terms you'll likely hear mentioned during the project. A more comprehensive list (which is always growing) can be found on the OnePurdue Web site.

ABAP

The programming language of SAP's ERP software.

ASAP

Short for Accelerated SAP, this is a methodology developed by SAP to speed up ERP-implementation projects and keep costs under control.

The consulting company chosen by the University to be OnePurdue's implementation partner.

Business Blueprint

The name of Phase II of the ASAP process, in addition to the document that will be generated at its conclusion. During this period, the project team will identify Purdue's organizational structures, design new business processes, install the SAP software and begin configuration training for the team.

The numerous and dated computer programs currently being used by Purdue. The mySAP ERP software will replace most of them, particularly those involving student services, human resources and financial management.

The University’s three-year, enterprise-wide initiative that will change the way Purdue does business by integrating mission-critical enterprise data, information and business processes. Once fully implemented, OnePurdue applications will be used by virtually everyone in the University.

Roadmap

A key component of the ASAP process, this defines a systematic approach that incorporates a project plan to an SAP implementation. The ASAP Roadmap is a step-by-step guide that is comprised of five specific phases: Project Preparation, Business Blueprint, Realization, Final Preparation and Go-Live and Support.

Each month we profile a few of the more than 100 individuals that make up the OnePurdue project team. In this issue, you will meet members of the Human Resources, Administrative, and Enrollment and Student Affairs Teams. (Photos by Steve Jones)

Debbie Dillman-Crowell is the Human Resources Team’s employee self-service specialist. Debbie has 35 years of Business Services experience at Purdue, and most recently served as the manager of Employee Group Services. In this role she coordinated the service recognition luncheons, the University retirement programs and the staff appreciation event, Spring Fling. Her responsibilities have also included the facilitation of APSAC and CSSAC. Debbie spent 12 years as an employment interviewer specializing in clerical and service staff positions before being promoted to manager of Employment and Employee Group Services. During her career in HR, she also served as an employee relations administrator, consulting with supervisors and employees to offer alternative ways to deal with issues and facilitating conflict-resolution meetings and discussions. Debbie is a Targeted Selection interviewer, completed Supervisory Development coursework and holds Zinger Miller certification as a trained facilitator. In her leisure time, she enjoys reading, photography and spending time with her family.

Usually the first person visitors to OnePurdue see, Ann Hanna is the project’s office receptionist. She assists the entire OnePurdue team with a seemingly endless variety of clerical and other activities, and was the first office support staff member to join the project last spring. Ann graduated from Purdue in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in teaching, and worked in the Twin Lakes School Corporation in Monticello for four years. She has also worked on her family’s farm for many years with her husband, Gerald. Married for 34 years, they have two grown children: Shane, 23, a Purdue graduate student studying agronomy, and Jendy, 20, who works for the Anderson’s Grain Elevator in Delphi. Ann is a great lover of animals, with horses, cattle, dogs, cats and even a donkey on the farm. She also enjoys reading, knitting, crocheting and traveling.

A member of OnePurdue’s Enrollment and Student Affairs Team, Mary Ann Bishel is also Purdue University Calumet’s representative on the project team. She has held a variety of positions in her 20 years at the Calumet campus, most recently as its director of financial aid and student accounts. Mary Ann has participated in numerous activities related to student information system implementation and maintenance for the Office of Financial Aid, and has provided leadership, along with the registrar, bursar and director of undergraduate admissions and recruitment, in the creation of an award-winning Enrollment Services Center. She was also the recipient of the 2000 Outstanding Administrator Award. Mary Ann received a bachelor’s degree in comprehensive business and office education in 1975 from The University of Akron and a master’s in vocational-technical education in 1982 from The Ohio State University. An Ohio transplant, she has lived in northwest Indiana since 1984. Mary Ann’s pride and joy are her three daughters: 19-year-old twins Alissa, a math major at Purdue, and Amanda, a nursing and Spanish major at IUPUI, and Alison, a senior at Chesterton High School and two-time state champion and record holder in the 4 x 800 relay. In addition to spending time with her friends and daughters, Mary Ann enjoys attending sporting events, plays and musicals, and walking at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. She also has two cats and a rescued greyhound. “I am excited about being part of the OnePurdue project. The Enrollment and Student Affairs team is awesome,” she says, “and I’m getting to know I-65 quite well as I commute from Chesterton each week.”

Explore the new OnePurdue Web site at http://www.purdue.edu/onepurdue. We are adding new content, updating information and improving it every day, so check back often for the latest news and information about this important project.

Directions:
For printable driving directions (with maps) from all four campuses to OnePurdue's office in Purdue Research Park, please visit the "Quick Links" section on the left side of the OnePurdue home page.

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